Y Athletics SilverAir Crew Neck

The Y Athletics SilverAir Short Sleeve Crew is a part of a new breed of synthetic work out shirts which attempt to be highly breathable while also being highly-odor resistant. The goal is to give you something which performs at the levels of merino wool, but has the durability of synthetics. I’ve now been testing this shirt for a little over two weeks, wearing it while I work out.

To start, this is a “Made in the USA” t-shirt with a unique material: 69% Nylon, 26% Polyester, 5% Metallic. The fabric is spun in Italy, and the ‘metallic’ is claimed to be silver. By adding silver, the shirt is said to be more odor resistant.

Smell, or lack thereof

I wore this shirt as my base layer for four workouts in a row before it started to smell — about the same amount of wears I get out of merino wool in the same scenario (also the same as the Pistol Lake Eudae fabric). I washed and hung the shirt to dry (it dries very fast) and wore it again for another five workouts and I still have not washed it again as I really cannot detect much smell.

I’m impressed. This shirt does live up to its claims of being odor resistant, and not just in the sense that you can wear it twice — it rivals the performance of merino, which is something I had yet to see out of a synthetic shirt.

Comfort

Since this is a workout shirt, and is synthetic, it is made to fit close to the skin. It doesn’t fit me tightly overall, but it is also unlikely to get in your way when working. I also found it less staticky than most synthetic shirts this time of year.

Make no mistake, it’s still a synthetic feeling shirt so it doesn’t have the softness of merino (or Eudae), but rather the entire shirt is very smooth to the touch. That said, given that my workouts are rucking, and rucking is known to be hard on shirts, I am a big fan of having a synthetic shirt I enjoy wearing.

The shirt also has a venting system built in, in addition to the moisture wicking properties, where the shirt is basically mesh in spots. However, unlike with most mesh materials, this doesn’t cause the shirt to be see through in any way, but you can tell form a glance that there is this venting. It’s a bit like a bus with ads over the windows, you know it’s got a ton of holes in it, but you also aren’t really able to see through it.

Overall

At first glance I wasn’t won over by this shirt, then I wore it to work out and I quickly changed my mind. The thing about this shirt is that it very much looks like what it is: a work out shirt. Whereas most merino t-shirts and even the Pistol Lake shirt we reviewed can be passed off as a standard t-shirt in many situations, you won’t get that with this shirt. What you will get is quite possibly the best workout shirt I’ve had the chance to wear thus far — it looks like a workout shirt, because it’s a really good workout shirt.

Steve’s Thoughts

I agree with Ben’s assessments of this shirt. I was very surprised with it’s odor resistance being on par with merino. I also found the moisture wicking ability to be the best of any shirt I own. If this shirt didn’t look like a workout shirt, it would become my favorite all around tee (and it has become my favorite workout tee).